BIG RAPIDS, MI – The Broncos and Bulldogs went at it on Saturday night like two brothers with hockey sticks going at it in dad’s garage until they were both bloody and one walked away with the last laugh.

There were a combined 31 penalties, a total of 95 penalty minutes and three ejections in Saturday’s Central Collegiate Hockey Association game between Western Michigan and Ferris State.

The 2-2 tie and FSU shootout win left a few Ferris State players grinning from ear to ear knowing they had knocked the Broncos out of first place and ruined their weekend.

Meanwhile, Western Michigan’s players moved in near silence outside the visiting locker room as they thought about how a few costly mistakes led to a 2-1 lead disappearing in the final minute of regulation.

Senior Mike Leone scored WMU’s second goal and its only shootout goal and said afterwards the Broncos would learn from this one.

“You build on games like these,” Leone said. “Guys make mistakes, but you have to be there for your teammates. There’s high and lows in a season. We have to build on this. We have Miami (Ohio) coming in next weekend and we have to take it one game at a time.”

By picking up only one standing point, WMU falls to second place behind Miami by one point.

The RedHawks play the Broncos in Kalamazoo next weekend.

FSU's Kyle Bonis scored to tie the game with 42 seconds remaining and force overtime.

His goal was set up by the Broncos’ unsuccessful attempts to get the puck out of their zone in the final minutes. WMU iced the puck four times in the closing minutes of regulation, which created more scoring chances for the Bulldogs.

Andy Murray

WMU coach Andy Murray said that was uncharacteristic of his team.

“We had some defensemen that had open plays to make and we did some things we don’t normally do,” Murray said. “We need a little more composure with the puck there. We had a chance to get (the puck) out and we didn’t and their best goal-scorer found the back of the net.”

Neither team could score in overtime and in the shootout Bonis netted the winning goal with the same backhanded shot teammate Cory Kane used to bury the biscuit in the shootout.

Both teams had to know Saturday’s game was going to get physical, but no hockey team could be ready for what happened just over three minutes into the third period of the contest.

Western Michigan's Justin Kovacs had a breakaway chance and when Ferris State goalie CJ Motte came out of net to make a play, Kovacs tripped and Motte was taken out. After the play a shoving match ensued across the ice that involved nearly every player.

What resulted was a five-minute power play for the Broncos and shortly into that FSU committed another penalty, leaving the Broncos with a 5-on-3 advantage for two minutes.

Dennis Brown scored 5:06 into the third period on a rebound putback during the 5-on-3 to tie the game for Western Michigan and 23 seconds later Leone lit the lamp during 5-on-4 action with a nifty shot in traffic in front of the net to give the Broncos a 2-1 lead.

“Things happen in hockey games,” Leone said. “We came out in the third period to get the lead and that’s what we did. We scored two power play goals. We did what we needed to do and we came back.”

FSU was dealt another major penalty when Matt Kirzinger received a pair of disqualifications 10 minutes into the third period.

After the whistle blew when a WMU player was shoved into the boards, Kirzinger ripped WMU defenseman Danny DeKeyser’s helmet off and hit him in the face. DeKeyser was left with a good-sized gash on his face.

The Broncos responded with a mental mistake of their own when defenseman Kenney Morrison was whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct 3:50 into WMU’s five-minute power play.

Murray said he liked his team’s power play, but he was very unhappy with Morrison’s untimely penalty as the Broncos were creating some chances to score an insurance goal.

“We lost (the second five-minute advantage) because of the penalty we took there,” Murray said. “We didn’t have it for the full five (minutes). We scored two power play goals. …We’d have to be pretty happy with that.”

Ferris State came out on the attack in the first period. The Bulldogs got very physical with the Broncos and it led to a pair of penalties, though WMU could not capitalize with the man advantage.

FSU also had two chances on the power play and the Bulldogs lit the lamp with 5:13 remaining in the opening period with a shot from the point by Kirzinger.

The scoring chance came to be when Trevor Elias, the point man on WMU’s penalty kill unit, broke his stick and couldn’t completely block Kirzinger’s shot lane.

The Broncos took a slim 10-9 shot advantage into the first intermission, but Ferris State controlled a lot of the action in the second period, with a big reason being the five power play chances the Bulldogs had in the period.

Ferris State outshot WMU 8-4 in the second period and finished the game with a 27-25 advantage.

The Bulldogs were 1-for-9 on the power play while WMU was 2-for-7.

Frank Slubowski made 25 saves for the Broncos while Motte made 23 stops for FSU.